


Boy Division

by swiftywrites



Category: Shinedown (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 07:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3110435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swiftywrites/pseuds/swiftywrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another lonely night with Brent, but this time, something feels off. Zach P.O.V. with some Brach thrown in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boy Division

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to my friend Becky for waiting forever for me to post a fic and then not ripping my head off when I got super panicky about posting this. This one's for you.

The bus was eerily silent when Brent came barging through the front door, having gone missing for a few hours. A gust of cold wind blew in behind him, causing him to shiver and rub his arms, a thin black coat being his only shelter.   
  
I was the only one still awake, tuning one of my acoustic guitars on the couch. The clock in the kitchen blinked 1:08 in the morning from the stainless steel oven. The only light that was still on was a small lamp in the living room where I was seated, its tiny light bright on the window.   
  
I sprang up eagerly, gripping the guitar by the neck. "Hi!" I chirped, hoping to get Brent to say something to me, but he stonily ignored me and dropped where I had been sitting, sighing.   
  
Sitting next to him, I crossed my legs and draped the guitar across my lap. "Where were you?" I asked, trying to sound stern, but with a teasing note in my voice. He still ignored me, removing his torn coat, revealing a battalion of goosebumps and a long, ugly scar across his left arm. Gently, I took his chilly hand in my own cold one, but he didn't respond.   
  
"God, you're freezing," I muttered, blowing on his hand to bring some warmth back. Nothing happened, so I stopped, and he pulled his hand away from mine, dropping it on his lap.   
  
I lounged my own hand over the wooden surface of the acoustic, brushing my reddish blond hair back a little bit with my other hand, blinking some sleepiness out of my eyes. I had been abnormally tired lately, and I didn't know why, which led to an almost insomniac like ritual of staying awake until 4, before I fell into a fitful sleep on the couch. Sometimes, I fell asleep on Brent's lap, since he, too, had started staying up way too late, but every time I woke back up, he would be gone. The strange thing was that his movement never woke me up; one moment, he was there, and the next, I was asleep on one of the pillows. It bothered me a little bit more than it should have.   
  
Brent shifted a little and pulled out a small bottle from his front pocket, trembling. My heart dropped sharply as I realized exactly what it was, and what it contained.   
  
"Hey, hey, don't take those..." I scolded, trying to reach for the bottle, but for some reason, I couldn't grab it. He spilled several pills in his hand and stared at them for a few seconds, hesitation prominent in his face, before swallowing them, shaking his head - at himself, I guess.   
  
"Why...?" I asked, but as usual, no response. "Brent...you shouldn't. You've already been through this once, why would you want to go through this whole process again?"   
  
Not paying one bit of attention to me, he replaced the bottle and leaned back on an old and ratty couch pillow, staring into space, not saying a word. I leaned in front of him, waving my hand, but he didn't even look me in the eyes, my dark blue into his light blue. In fact, I felt like I was being stared right through.   
  
Glancing at where he was looking, I toppled backwards as he stood up suddenly, slowly wobbling to a small oak shelf where several pictures in frames were sitting on the dusty surface, in dire need of washing. Several of the glasses in the frames had cracked, from being dropped, and some of the frames were cloaked in fingerprints, showing that someone had spent many long, sleepless nights looking at them.   
  
Brent picked up a particularly smudged picture in a silver frame and slowly returned to his perch on the couch, staring at it mindlessly. I peeked over his shoulder, looking straight into a picture of the two of us from a year or so ago. He was teasingly leaning towards me, trying to kiss my cheek, while I ducked away, grinning. His face was totally free of any of the stress lines that now existed, and I knew there was something there in me that I supposedly no longer had, but I couldn't place it...   
  
I smiled at the memory, how Brent chased me around the fairgrounds where we had been playing that day, before catching me on the Ferris wheel and kissing me at the very top. It was almost bittersweet, looking back on it now. In fact, I had been reminded of so many old, nostalgic memories of myself and my friends, especially Brent, from all the time he'd spent looking at pictures of us, but the fair memory was a personal favorite of mine to think about.   
  
I leaned on his shoulder, whispering "You know - that could be us, again. If only..." My voice trailed off, leaving silence. I didn't know what I had been going to say, but I felt shaky from giving the possibility of it thought. Why...?   
  
Brent didn't say anything, but his face fell, and he dropped the picture on the ground, a crack appearing in the glass between us, the smash breaking the silence. He buried his face in his hands, shuddering, before raising his face back up, tears dripping on his hands and the broken picture frame, blurring our faces.   
  
"Don't cry," I said quietly, wrapping my arms around him. "Please don't cry."   
  
"I'm...so sorry, Zach," he whispered, trembling. "If only...I had been a little sooner..."   
  
"Don't be sorry," I laid my face against his cheek before lightly kissing him. "I'm still here...please don't be sorry about anything. Nothing happened. I'm completely okay."   
  
"If - if only I could see you one more time, then I'd feel a little better. But look at me...I'm a failure for going back to the pills...for ignoring Eric and Barry's help...and most of all...," Brent's voice cracked with a sob. "For letting you go."   
  
My heart sank, and I clenched my teeth, tears stinging in my own eyes. "Don't be like that. You aren't a failure and you've - you've never been a failure. Damn it, Brent...I'm right here...I'm perfectly fine."   
  
He didn't say anything to me, and I sighed. This was a bad day, and of course, I couldn't get through. Like with the day before that, and the day before that, going back so long I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually had a full conversation with Brent.   
  
I enveloped my arms around his neck, but he turned his head away. A tear landed on my arm and slid off, as I didn't move.   
  
"You used to say that you loved me but now...now you don't even look at me. What happened?" I asked, unmoving. "Was...was it the accident? Is that why you refuse to say anything to me, to look at me, when I'm - I'm right here? I was always here, didn't you notice?"  
  
A deep quiet spread out, and I kept repeating the question, hoping to constitute an answer. Brent didn't respond, tracing his right hand over the scar on his left arm. I knew he had gotten it in the accident, trying to help me. But in the end, I didn't need his help. I was okay...wasn't I?   
  
"I wasn't hurt bad in the accident, you know?" I continued. "That's why...that's why I wish you would talk to me again. I was hurt, but it wasn't serious. Just like you."   
  
The accident...   
  
A year before, there had been a mishap in concert, on my side of the stage. Apparently, one of the heavy stage lights had broken loose, and fell. Brent had tried to help me, but hurt his arm on a big chunk of glass diving for me, and even thought I had been injured, too, and one of my best electrics fully splintered into several different pieces, I felt completely fine after the accident. It had been only a small twinge of pain on the base of my neck, and after I had spent some time in a special ward of the hospital, I was ready to get back on tour, but then everyone started to ignore me. The tour was cancelled, and Shinedown began to play small cities that could easily be reserved in a short amount of time. For some reason, Brent was the one playing guitar in my place, and he hated it, from what I had seen. But the worse thing was when everyone kept telling Brent, in obvious denial about something, that I...   
  
Everyone kept saying…   
  
I stood up suddenly, tears clouding my own eyes. "Damn it, Brent!" I shouted, dropping my guitar with a bang. "I'm right here! Can't you see me? CAN'T YOU?"   
  
I slapped him, hard, but he didn't respond. "Quit acting like I'm not here! I'm okay and standing right in front of you! I've been here the entire time...and I've been here every night before, trying to comfort you, trying to get through to you...you can see me, right? Why can't you see me? WHY CAN'T YOU SEE ME?" I shouted, before collapsing in front of him, tears streaming down my face. "I'm right here! Please look at me...I'm fine, Brent...I'm fine! Why can't anyone see that?! I'M RIGHT HERE! I was hurt, but it wasn't bad...just like you! So - so why doesn't anyone look at me, or talk to me, and why do you play guitar in my place when I can still play - why do you all act like I don't exist in FRONT OF ME?! Look at me, damn it, just address me!"   
  
I lowered my face in front of his, but he stared straight through me, just like before, every night before. I leaned so close to him that my nose brushed against his, but no acknowledgement. My presence felt swept aside by something, and a prickle rose up my arms, as I realized - what if that "something" was what I had been thinking about before?   
  
"No." I breathed, horror blooming in my bones. It wasn't true...it couldn't be!   
  
My voice slowly ran out, as I realized that maybe the "something" I had before the accident had been stolen from me…but it couldn’t have been; I’d been okay the entire year.  
  
But realization took a hold of me, and, as tears slid down my face, I buried my face in Brent's chest, begging…  
  
"I'm right here...why won't you look at me? I'm not -"   
  
No.   
  
"I'm not -"   
  
I can't be.  
  
"I -"   
  
Wouldn't I know?   
  
"..."   
  
I pulled from Brent's slowly rising chest and stared at my hands, shaking. I wasn't...   
  
"Brent, please look at me. I'm your best friend...why can't you look me in the face anymore and say that you love me, like at the festival? I'm okay, I promise. I'm - I’m right here.   
  
 _I'm right here."_  
  
Everyone kept saying...   
  
  
I was dead.


End file.
